


Little Big Girl

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5436338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The line is silent but she knows he’s there. She hears him. She feels him. She wants him, even though she left him. It might be the most selfish thing she’s ever done, she thinks. </p>
<p>Kind of a sequel to Middle of Nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Big Girl

She fiddles with the unfamiliar thermostat one more time before pulling on a pair of wool socks. She couldn’t have waited until spring, she tells herself. They need time apart. 

Her new mattress creaks under her as she crawls into bed. The deliverymen had been two hours late and she’d been grumpy to begin with. After Mulder had left and Bill had returned to his hotel, she was alone, really alone, for the first time in years. 

She has the whole bed to herself, that’s something. Mulder's long limbs kept her warm on late nights but she'd wake up in a sweat and have to disentangle herself from him. And he was a sprawler, rarely giving her space to sleep on her stomach. She prostrates herself against the cold, too-crisp sheets and shivers. 

She can read in bed now, she thinks, and not have to worry about waking him. But then she realizes her books are waiting to be unpacked somewhere in the living room and she groans. Scully takes her phone from the stack of boxes that is currently serving as her bedside table, the short charging cord keeping her chained close to the edge of her bed.

Her thumb taps his name on the screen before she can think twice. He picks up after a few rings. He doesn’t say anything.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

The line is silent but she knows he’s there. She hears him. She feels him. She wants him, even though she left him. It might be the most selfish thing she’s ever done, she thinks. 

“Thank you for bringing by the stuff I forgot earlier. And sorry Bill was such a…” She rubs her nose, trying to warm it up. “Anyway. It’s cold here. I know it’s not that far and it’s probably the same temperature where you--Anyway.”

She hears him breathe. He says, “It’s cold here too.”

She wants to ask, wants to know for sure, that he’s talking about temperature, physically, and not temperature, metaphorically, but she is tired and he is tired and the compounding exhaustion makes her remember why she left, why they need some time apart. 

Before she can say anything else he says, “Goodnight, Scully.”

“Goodnight, Mulder.”

She hangs up and curls into the fetal position, hoping it will make her warmer, and knowing that she will likely be cold for a very long time. 

Scully remembers something her grandmother told her once, when she was thirteen and staying with them one summer. She had tried to cut her own hair and her mother’s mother had stared down at her over silver-rimmed glasses and said in a sweet, sorrowful voice, “Oh, Dana. You’ve made your bed, my darling. Now you’ve got to lie in it.”


End file.
